Trapped in a mysterious city and told the only way to escape is to regain their lost memories, six teenagers solve puzzles and seek answers as they’re forced to face their past trauma.
Type-NOISE: Shonen Shojo
Developer: DankHearts
Price: $20
Platforms: PC
MonsterVine was supplied with a PC code for review.
Type-Noise Shonen Shojo blends visual novel storytelling with adventure game puzzle-solving. It begins when a girl named Zena wakes up to find herself in a strange place with no memory of how she got there. A boy named Soto is with her, and the two of them begin searching for a way to escape. When they finally emerge, they discover they are no longer in Tokyo, but rather in a strange, distorted version of the city, trapped alongside four other teenagers. A mysterious overseer called Spectre tells them the only way to leave is to regain their lost memories, all of which relate to trauma in their pasts.
Type-NOISE Shonen Shojo Features Trauma, Memories, and Mystery
Although the beginning sets up Zena as the main character, that role actually belongs to Soto. He’s the character you’ll play as for the majority of Type-NOISE Shonen Shojo. Zena still has an important role in the story, however, more so than it may appear at first. In fact, each of the six characters has a chance to shine, since you’ll learn their stories and see their pasts through flashbacks as they recover their memories. You won’t see everyone’s story right away, however. As the characters try to escape, there are times when you’ll have to choose where to go. Your choice of location determines which characters you’ll accompany, and therefore whose past you’ll uncover during your playthrough. A flowchart makes it easy to keep track of these branching paths and go back to see the other routes, which you’ll want to do to learn the full story.
In each location, you’ll be trapped until you solve the room’s puzzles to escape. In typical escape room fashion, these range from inventory puzzles where you just need to use the correct item in the right spot to more complicated riddles that require you to pay attention to clues and figure out the answer. If you attempt a puzzle enough times, the characters will provide slight hints, although sometimes it still can be tricky to determine the solution to the more opaque puzzles. Fortunately, you can scan each room to highlight items you still need to interact with, which can help point you in the right direction as well. Some puzzles are also more like mini-games, which adds a refreshing twist to the gameplay. These mini-games vary greatly, such as a trial where you present evidence to clear a character of a crime, a musical score where you must click the correct notes to play the song, and a tactical game where you have to choose the correct moves to defeat the targets. Each mini-game is not only a break from the usual formula but also ties directly to the story of the character whose past you’re exploring.
It isn’t just a matter of using the items in the room, either. As you investigate each area, you’ll also find Noise Shards, described as being “fragments of trauma” from the characters’ pasts. Once you have all the Noise Shards from a set, you assemble them like a simple jigsaw puzzle to unlock a memory. These memories not only tell the story of the characters’ pasts and what trauma they faced but also provide additional information for the room’s puzzles. It all culminates in a confrontation with the most important person related to the character’s trauma, where you must correctly remember details to talk your way through to a resolution. Now, if you clear an area without getting all of the Noise Shards, you’ll need to replay that section to get them. Fortunately, you don’t have to redo all of the puzzles, since you already have some clues or options unlocked by the Noise you have already found. This makes it easy to return to the spot you need to be.
The characters’ stories can get quite emotional, with some pretty heavy themes. Most involve a relationship that went wrong in some way, and the way those stories play out can be upsetting. It’s traumatic enough that they wanted to forget it, after all. However, no matter how dark it gets, this is ultimately a story about learning to face your past trauma and move on. At its core, it’s a hopeful story. Meanwhile, the overarching plot has some surprising twists, and while I felt a few parts could have had a tighter execution, it resolved itself in a satisfying way.
Type-Noise: Shonen Shojo has a stylish presentation, with great art and a beautiful animated intro. Unfortunately, it suffers from a variety of typos, missing punctuation, and translation oddities. This mostly comes down to awkward phrasing, although there are a few more notable errors, such as a mannequin hanging from the ceiling being labeled as “hunging mannequin.” Fortunately, the developer intends to address the translation issues in a future update. I also had some minor annoyances with the text, particularly with how clicking to advance the text goes line-by-line instead of completing the whole sentence. And while there’s a convenient option to skip through text you’ve already read, this doesn’t apply if you lose a confrontation, meaning you’ll need to click through any dialogue that occurred beforehand. These are ultimately minor flaws, however, in what is otherwise an enjoyable game.
The Final Word
While Type-Noise: Shonen Shojo could have executed some of its concepts a little better, it tells a solid story about trauma and moving on. These characters’ stories aren’t revolutionary, but they’re emotional and heartfelt, and I found myself rooting for each one as I learned more about them. As an adventure game, it also provides a wide variety of puzzles that are both challenging and satisfying.
MonsterVine Rating: 4 out of 5 – Good
